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Alastair Richardson - 29th October 2018
The 37th Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland was passed by referendum on Friday, removing the word ‘blasphemous’ from Article 40.6.1i. In Article 40.6.1, the State guarantees “subject to public order and morality,” the “right of the citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions.” The Article added, however, that “the publication or utterance of […]
Schona Jolly QC and Nathan Roberts - 28th October 2018
This blog is the second in a series that takes a snapshot of where LGBT+ rights are in 2018, as a result of some recent significant decisions across the Americas, Europe and India, and considers the portents for change in light of them. In a previous blog post, we considered the position in the Americas. […]
Mariana Canto - 26th October 2018
In April 2018, the agreement entered into between ADMobilize and ViaQuatro, the administrator of the yellow line of the São Paulo subway, enabled the use of a technology to collect data related to the facial expressions of public transport users. Almost four months later, on August 30, 2018, an action was filed by the Brazilian […]
Christine Kahura - 25th October 2018
The Mau Forest is one of Kenya’s forest reserves, gazetted in 1954 to protect it from deforestation. In 2001, the government carried out an excision of the Eastern Mau region which constitutes 25% of the forest with a view to establishing a settlement scheme understood to be for the Ogiek community. The Marishioni location, Elburgon […]
Kali Srikari Kancherla and Shreyasi Tripathi - 25th October 2018
In the landmark decision in Joseph Shine v Union of India on 27 September 2018, the Indian Supreme Court unanimously struck down a 150-year old penal provision criminalising adultery as unconstitutional. Section 497 of Indian Penal Code 1860 criminalises a man having consensual sexual intercourse with a married woman without the consent of her husband. The Court […]
Satang Nabaneh Marion Stevens and Lucia Berro Pizzarossa - 24th October 2018
South Africa has one of the most liberal laws on abortion and constitutionally recognizes reproductive rights as human rights. However, data shows important difficulties translating the legal norms into effective access to services. One of the key challenges is physicians’ refusal to perform abortions invoking an “ad hoc, unregulated and at times incorrect” conscientious objection. […]
Marie Spinoy - 24th October 2018
On the 5th of July, the Ghent court of first instance held a ban on burkinis in two public swimming pools to constitute discrimination. In both these cases Muslim women were denied access to swimming pools while wearing a ‘burkini’. Such swimsuits usually cover the whole body, except for the face, hands and feet. The regulations […]
Jamie McLoughlin - 23rd October 2018
The Court of Appeal in the Netherlands has just issued a landmark judgment concerning environmental human rights and climate change. It has found the Dutch State to be in breach of its positive obligations under Articles 2 and 8 of the ECHR by failing to adopt a more ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The judgment […]
Arindrajit Basu - 23rd October 2018
The dawn of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been celebrated by both government and industry across the globe. AI offers the potential to augment many existing bureaucratic processes and improve human capacity, if implemented in accordance with principles of the rule of law and international human rights norms. Unfortunately, AI-powered solutions have often been implemented in […]
Liz Curran - 22nd October 2018
Australia’s inquiry into childhood institutional abuse has lessons for other jurisdictions, especially the UK. International human rights provisions for children in institutional care include Article 13 of the Convention on the Rights or the Child (CROC) (1989), alongside protections for children with a disability (CROC Article 23), children in the care and protection system (CROC […]
Schona Jolly QC and Nathan Roberts - 21st October 2018
2018 has seen a flurry of activity in the advancement and development of LGBT+ rights in the international sphere. An exhaustive review of international LGBT+ rights would be beyond the scope of any single piece: the international landscape is far from homogenous; different countries and regions operate with different legal and social starting points. This […]
Aradhana Cherupara Vadekkethil - 19th October 2018
In a landmark judgment on 6th September, 2018, a five judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court of India in Navtej Johar v Union of India decriminalised same-sex relations. In a unanimous verdict, the Supreme Court held that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, in so far as it criminalises consensual sexual conduct between […]